


Surprise?

by StarryKnight09



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [23]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Identity Reveal, Irondad, Spider-Man Identity Reveal, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29740812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarryKnight09/pseuds/StarryKnight09
Summary: “So how do you think he’s going to react when he finds out you’ve been keeping this from him?” Ned asked.“He’s going to be pissed.” He decided.“Right.” Ned nodded.  “And do you think he’ll be more or less pissed if he finds out on his own instead of you telling him about it?”“Definitely more.” Peter agreed.“Ok so you agree you should tell him today.”“No.”Febuwhump Day 27: identity reveal
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138670
Comments: 22
Kudos: 340





	Surprise?

“Hey do you want to come over tonight?” Ned asked as they stood at their lockers, shoving their books into their backpacks.

“I can’t. It’s a Friday remember?” Peter said, feeling kind of bad. He knew he’d been neglecting Ned lately with everything that was going on in his life. Juggling decathlon, school, homework, Spiderman, and his internship made it seem like there was just never enough time in the day, or week for that matter, for all the stuff he needed to get done.

“So?” Ned frowned.

“I have my Stark internship on Fridays.” He reminded him.

“Oh right.” Ned nodded as they walked down the hallway toward the school doors. “So, are you going to tell Mr. Stark about you know what today?”

“Um no.” He winced. He’d applied for the Stark internship on a whim a year ago and had actually gotten it. The day he’d found out he was going to be interning directly under Tony Stark, he’d almost wet himself, but after almost a year of working with him, that had definitely faded. As Mr. Stark would say, he sassed him more than he complimented him now. 

When he’d gotten bit by the radioactive spider six months ago, he’d thought about telling Mr. Stark about his new powers, but by then they’d grown close enough that he was worried Mr. Stark wouldn’t allow him to keep being Spiderman if he found out. And then Ben had died. And thoughts of anything else had gone out the window.

“Peter.” Ned chastised. “It’s been weeks. You should just tell him. He’s going to figure it out soon anyway.”

“Not necessarily. Spiderman’s been around for the last six months and Mr. Stark hasn’t figured it out yet.” Peter hedged. Ok, so realistically he knew Mr. Stark would eventually figure it out, but he’d been extra careful ever since the man had started up his hunt to find out who Spiderman was. Besides, Peter had an advantage. He worked directly with his enemy, so he was always one step ahead of him and Mr. Stark had no idea.

“Yeah he’s been around for six months, but Mr. Stark has only been looking for him for the last three weeks.” Ned argued. “He’s getting closer and you know it.”

Peter did know it. On Wednesday Mr. Stark had shown him a clip of Spiderman swinging into an abandoned alleyway to change. His mentor had been so sure he’d had him, but then a garbage truck had driven by the entrance of the alleyway just as Peter was leaving in his street clothes, luckily obscuring his identity. Mr. Stark had sworn up a blue streak and Peter had made a mental note to be much more cognizant of city cameras whenever he was getting in and out of the suit.

“But if I tell him who I am then it’ll take all the fun out of it for him.” Peter smirked. He’d known Mr. Stark long enough to know that as much as he kept complaining about ‘this webhead’ he was enjoying the challenge of it. Peter didn’t want to spoil it for him. At least that’s what he’d been telling himself the last few weeks ever since Mr. Stark had told him he wanted his help to find Spiderman.

“You’re playing with fire dude.” Ned warned as they passed through the school doors to outside.

“Why? What’s he going to do to me if he finds out?” Peter said with false bravado. “Ground me? He’s not my dad.”

“Does he know that though?” Ned joked. “Didn’t he pack you a lunch for school when you stayed over at his place last week?”

“Yeah.”

“And didn’t he spend all day watching a Star Wars marathon with you last weekend when he doesn’t even like Star Wars?”

Peter made a face. Ok, so Ned kind of had a point.

“And don’t him and your aunt have like coffee dates every month now just to talk about you?”

“Ok ok I get it.”

“So how do you think he’s going to react when he finds out you’ve been keeping this from him?” Ned asked.

“He’s going to be pissed.” He decided.

“Right.” Ned nodded. “And do you think he’ll be more or less pissed if he finds out on his own instead of you telling him about it?”

“Definitely more.” Peter agreed.

“Ok so you agree you should tell him today.”

“No.”

“Peter!” Ned shook his head. “You’re hopeless.”

“It’s all a moot point anyway. He’s not going to find out.”

“Hopeless _and_ in denial.” Ned said.

Peter rolled his eyes.

“Whatever dude. It’s your funeral. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ned clapped him on the shoulder and turned to start walking home. “Text me if you want to hang out this weekend.”

“I will.” Peter said and made his way toward the nondescript Audi waiting for him.

“Hey Happy.” He greeted the man behind the steering wheel as he crawled in. Or as he liked to think of him, not-so-Happy.

Happy didn’t respond to his greeting as he started driving away, but Peter still liked to think he was slowly growing on the man.

“Guess what we did in chemistry today? Our teacher said—”

“I’ll give you this snickers bar if you don’t talk for the next ten minutes.” Happy interrupted, holding up said candy bar as proof.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Ok.” He stared out the window. The man was bringing him candy now. He was definitely growing on him.

Ned was wrong. Mr. Stark didn’t figure out Spiderman’s identity that week. Or even the week after. Or the week after that. Although Peter did have another close call with a traffic camera he didn’t know was installed nearby when he’d taken his mask off to deal with a bloody nose. In the intervening weeks, he’d thought more seriously about coming clean to his mentor because Mr. Stark was getting a little obsessive and it was making Peter’s life a lot harder. He had to completely avoid the area near his apartment now because Tony had come up with an algorithm to track where Spiderman was sighted and he was using it as a tool to try to narrow in on his possible residence. Admittedly smart, but super annoying for Peter because now he had to walk at least ten blocks home every night after Spidermanning. And his mentor had even figured out the components of his web fluid, although he hadn’t been able to successfully reverse engineer it yet. Part of Peter felt a spark of pride at that even though some of his Mr. Stark’s failure might’ve been his fault. He’d been trying his hardest to slow him down. But now that his mentor knew the web fluid materials, he was looking for people who had bought large quantities of those exact chemicals. At least Peter was safe in that regard, he still mooched everything from his chemistry class. But by now even Peter had to admit it was only a matter of time before Mr. Stark thought of something even Peter couldn’t foresee or deter.

Ned had been on his case the past week about telling the man and Peter was seriously considering it for the first time. 

“Hey Mr. Stark!” He greeted as he walked into the man’s lab, feeling his usual flash of wonder. After a year, having access to Tony Stark’s private lab still hadn’t gotten old.

“Hey Mr. Parker.” His mentor said, spinning in his desk chair to face him. “How many more times am I going to have to tell you to call me Tony?”

Peter shrugged. Honestly, he did it now solely because he knew it annoyed him. “What are you doing?” He asked, sidestepping the question and pointing to the holoscreens Mr. Stark had pulled up over his desk.

Mr. Stark narrowed his eyes at him as if trying to decide whether or not to push the name thing, but after a moment he twirled back to face the screens, letting it go. “I’m hacking into a bodega’s security camera.”

Peter walked over to him, dropping his backpack on the ground next to the desk with the weight of the knowledge that it held the suit of the very vigilante Mr. Stark was looking for. He stared at the screens over the man’s shoulder. They looked oddly familiar. “Why?”

“Because I’ve finally got the little pipsqueak.” Mr. Stark said with eager excitement.

“What are you talking about? Because you’re starting to sound a little supervillainy...” Peter joked.

“Spiderman.” Mr. Stark answered. “I finally got him.”

Peter’s heart leapt into his chest as he asked nervously, “You did? Um h-how?”

“He repeatedly patrols around this area.” Mr. Stark explained and pointed to the corresponding area on the map of Queens. The part right by Mr. Delmar’s shop. Oh shit. He hadn’t thought of that and he thought he’d been so careful. “Ever since I realized it, I’ve had FRIDAY continuously scanning the traffic cameras and we got lucky. She caught him going into this alleyway here.” Mr. Stark pointed to the alley on the screen. “Now watch. A minute later someone comes out.” 

Peter watched himself exit the alleyway with his navy hoodie pulled up over his head to obscure his face. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. There was no way you could tell that was him.

“Now, I know you can’t see his face, and I couldn’t get a good enough angle from any other cameras in the area, but I managed to follow him the next three blocks to this bodega. I screened the footage from outside of it for the previous hour before he goes in, and if I’m right, it should be completely empty except for him.”

Yeah, that tracked. No one had been in there when he’d visited Mr. Delmar and Murph yesterday.

“So?” He asked, sensing Mr. Stark was waiting for him to do so.

“ _So_ my young grasshopper, whoever this guy is goes in with his hood up, but when he comes out ten minutes later, look.” Mr. Stark pointed to the screen. “His hood is still up but the strings around it aren’t pulled tight anymore which means…”

“He took it off in the store.” Peter mumbled in shock. He had taken it off in the store. He’d thought he was safe, and he hadn’t wanted Mr. Delmar to think he was being a weirdo punk.

“He took it off in the store.” Mr. Stark repeated with satisfaction. “So, if I can hack into the bodega’s security footage, I can finally figure out exactly who this little twerp is that’s been evading me these past couple months.”

“Uh huh.” He said distractedly as he tried to figure out a way out of this, but no ideas came to mind. Shit. He never should’ve stopped for a sandwich yesterday during patrol. It didn’t matter how hungry he’d been or how good they tasted.

Mr. Stark continued typing away and moment later declared, “Ah ha! I’m in.”

“Um Mr. Stark, there’s something I need to tell you.” Peter tried to nervously interject, but his mentor was in the zone. Peter could’ve been screaming he was on fire and Mr. Stark wouldn’t have heard him.

“Get ready to be amazed kid.” Mr. Stark said, cocky as hell as he brought up the footage from the camera behind Mr. Delmar’s counter. “It’s finally time to see exactly who you are Spiderman.”

“Uh…” He really needed to say something or do something or— 

Too late. The feed from Mr. Delmar’s camera came up on the screen. He froze. There was Mr. Delmar, and Murph lying on the counter, and there he was walking in with his hood over his head. Shit. His hand moved up to his hood. It was a lot like watching a train wreck in slow motion. And his hood was off. His profile wasn’t very descript, but he knew any second he’d turn toward Mr. Delmar and be facing the camera straight on. And yep. There he was. In all his idiot glory.

“Wait.” Mr. Stark frowned and leaned closer to the screen as if he didn’t believe his eyes. “That looks like…”

Peter winced and a split second later Mr. Stark whirled to face him, face showing absolute shock.

“You.” Mr. Stark accused and then said in disbelief. “It’s you.”

He fake shrugged, holding his hands out, palms up. “Surprise?”

“What the f—”

“I’m sorry!” 

Mr. Stark stood from his chair so fast it fell over backward. He pointed a finger at him. “ _You’re_ Spiderman? This whole time I’ve been looking for him and he’s been in my own lab? My very own _intern_?”

“Um, it looks like it?”

“Don’t be cute. Yes or no.”

“Yes.” He nodded, backing up as Mr. Stark slowly advanced toward him. Peter’s eyes widened. “I was going to tell you! I was! But then I just…didn’t?”

“You were helping me look for him!”

Peter made a considering face. “Well, I was pretending to? But really I was trying to stay one step ahead of you.”

He bumped into his desk chair and fell into it. Tony stood over him, arms crossed, still looking more than a little angry.

“How. Did. This. Happen?” Tony ground out.

“Um, remember that field to Oscorp that I went on about six months ago that you said I shouldn’t go on?” Peter asked nervously.

“Yes.”

“Turns out you were right.” He said as he nodded.

“What?”

“I uh got bit by a radioactive spider, and it made me so sick I thought I was dying, but then I woke up and I was this.” He gestured at his body.

Mr. Stark’s eyes narrowed at him.

“Oh. Um.” He lifted his shirt so Mr. Stark could see his perfectly chiseled six pack abs.

“Jesus kid.” Mr. Stark shook his head.

“Oh and I lied about getting contacts. I didn’t. I just don’t need glasses anymore. The bite fixed all of that. And I don’t have allergies or asthma anymore either, so you can update that on my employee form if you want.”

“Yes because that’s what’s important right now.” Mr. Stark scoffed.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated although it seemed like Mr. Stark’s anger was cooling. He didn’t look like he was about to have an aneurysm anymore. “I should’ve told you when you started looking for Spiderman. I know I wasted your time.”

“No! You should’ve told me six months ago when it first happened!” Mr. Stark yelled. Ok, so maybe he was still pretty mad. “You thought you were _dying_ and you didn’t tell anyone? And then you woke up with superpowers and you _still_ didn’t tell anyone?”

“Yeah, that’s the gist of it.” He grimaced.

Mr. Stark put his hand over his face as she shook his head. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before dropping his hand and meeting Peter’s gaze to ask, “So no one knows?”

“Well, um, Ned knows because he caught me sneaking into my room as Spiderman, and now…you know.” Peter answered.

“May doesn’t know?”

“No.” He shook his head vehemently.

“Of course not.” Mr. Stark scoffed. “Because why would you tell a responsible adult you’re going out at all hours of the night to fight criminals. Jesus.” Mr. Stark shook his head again in disbelief. “You’re going out at all hours of the night to fight criminals. Well that ends today.”

“No!” Peter shot to his feet and raised his chin as he faced Mr. Stark unflinchingly. “I’m not going to stop! And you can’t make me!” He knew the wording made him sound like a petulant child but he didn’t care.

Mr. Stark raised his eyebrows at him in challenge and Peter had to force himself to stand tall and not wither under his gaze. Sometimes he forgot Mr. Stark was Ironman, Tony Stark, but at times like these, getting stared down by the man, he remembered.

Mr. Stark shook his head and said, “You’re fourteen years old.” 

“I’m fifteen! And I know you know that! You got me a birthday present.” He accused. “Besides, I’ve been doing this for six months and I’ve been fine. I’m not going to stop now. And this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew you’d go all nuts about it!”

“Yes because not wanting to let a _child_ run around in the middle of the night fighting crime is nuts.” Mr. Stark rolled his eyes.

“I’m not a child!”

Mr. Stark frowned and the next second he suddenly spun on his heels and marched over to where he’d left his backpack, lifting it up to his desk and opening it.

“Hey that’s mine!” Peter protested, hurrying over to him but it was too late. Mr. Stark fished out his Spiderman suit from the bottom of it and held it out.

“This? _This_ is what you fight crime in? It’s a onesie!”

“No it’s not.” He frowned. He’d put a lot of work into making that. He didn’t appreciate Mr. Stark making fun of it.

“What is it then?”

“My super suit.” He smiled.

“We are never watching The Incredibles again.” Mr. Stark shook his head. “And what are these?” His mentor asked, holding up his goggles to his own eyes. “How the hell do you even see anything through these?”

Peter snatched them from his hands. “They help. Ever since I got my powers all my senses are have been dialed to eleven. There’s way too much input. Those help me filter it out and focus.”

Mr. Stark frowned, looking at him in a way he never had before, like there might be something wrong with him, which didn’t make any sense. He’d never once looked at weak, little, half blind, asthmatic Peter Parker the way he was now looking at Spiderman. Peter didn’t like it.

Mr. Stark dropped his suit to his desk with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So let me get this straight, you got bit by a radioactive spider, almost died but didn’t, woke up with super powers and then decided to sew a onesie and start swinging around town fighting crime?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Tell me why. Why are you doing this?” The man ordered and Peter could tell this was important.

“Because…when you can do the things I can and you don’t and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” He explained solemnly and tried not to think of his uncle lying limp on the concrete, bleeding out.

Mr. Stark sighed and dropped back down into his desk chair, resting a fist over his mouth as he examined Peter.

Peter tried not to fidget under the scrutiny.

“If I let you do this, we’re doing it my way.” Mr. Stark finally spoke.

“Yes!” Peter thrust his arms in the air and then threw himself at Mr. Stark to hug him. “Thank Mr. Stark! Thank you!”

Mr. Stark patted his back awkwardly. “Yeah. All right. All right. Don’t thank me yet. There are going to be ground rules. A lot of ground rules. And a curfew.”

“Aw come on.” Peter complained as he pulled away.

“And I don’t want to hear any sass about it, because you can say I can’t stop you all you want, but you and I both know I can.” Mr. Stark held a finger up at him in warning. It was true. He did know. “First of all, I’m going to make you a suit.”

“Really?” His eyes went wide.

“Really. You’re in dire need of an upgrade. I can’t let you keep swinging around town in this.” Mr. Stark poked at his super suit as if was a stinky pile of garbage.

“It’s not that bad…” He argued but the thought of having a suit built for him by Mr. Stark made him want to jump up and down in excitement.

“And I’m telling May.” Mr. Stark said.

“No! Please Mr. Stark, you can’t tell her!”

“She needs to know kid. You’re her responsibility and you’re out there risking your life.”

“Risking my life is kind of an exaggeration. I mean I don’t do _that_ many dangerous things. I’m more like the friendly neighborhood spiderman.”

“I saw a video of you webbing up bank robbers last week. They were shooting at you. Very real bullets. Very real life risking danger.” Mr. Stark said, not amused. A second later he frowned as he stared off in the distance at the wall behind Peter, looking like he was deep in thought.

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter prompted.

“Just replaying in my head all those videos I’ve seen of you doing stupidly dangerous stunts.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “They’re not that bad.”

Mr. Stark arched an eyebrow at him.

“Please don’t tell May.” He pleaded. “If she knows she’s going to freak out and then I’m going to freak out and she doesn’t need this kind of stress right now, not after…” He trailed off, not wanting to talk about his uncle’s death. He could tell Mr. Stark understood though because he made the face everyone made whenever Peter mentioned Ben these days.

Mr. Stark ran a hand down his face and nodded. “Ok fine.”

“Thank you!” 

“But I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.”

“Fine.” Peter didn’t like it, but it was better than the alternative.

“So.” Mr. Stark sighed and slapped his thighs before standing. “That web fluid. You made that yourself?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Stark smiled, and Peter didn’t think he was imagining the pride in his eyes. “Where’d you get the supplies?”

“Chemistry class.”

Mr. Stark snorted. “Of course you did. You want to walk me through how you make it?”

Peter grinned. “Sure.”

Huh. Maybe Ned had been right. Mr. Stark finding out hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Did another alternate prompt today because everyone loves a little identity reveal! After I wrote this I realized calling it whump (even of the emotional variety) might be a _bit_ of a reach but oh well I'm tired and I thought it was funny. Only one more day left!
> 
> Come hit me up on [Tumblr!](https://starryknight09.tumblr.com/)


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